You Should Live Here #13

Only don't get lost.

Travel in pairs.

I want a house that I can't see the end of.

No, I'm not going to end this with a song lyric.

Work of fiction (November Blues)

So I wrote a novel.

Well, fine, I am writing one. It's not finished yet -- but the folks at the National Novel Writing Month don't care, since they gave me this picture for the first 50,327 words, which I wrote in November.

They gave me other pictures, but this one is better. Really, the others are even less impressive.

At the moment, it is called The Other Bakersfield. According to the synopsis I had to fill out to get all these pictures (and a certificate I can hang on my wall or my hard drive), it's about a ghost town that gets a second chance. It's also about artists and dogs and electricity and guilt and what it's like to lose your mind. Because I could, I invented a musical genre and a pharmaceutical drug to make things interesting.

No, you can't read it. Not yet. In the end, it will be about twice as big as it is now. There's still lots to be done. But I appreciate your interest, honestly I do. Tell your friends about it, and tell them they can't read it either.

I can give you the first sentence, though, if you'd like. The first sentence is this:

Rubble.

How to Look Good #22

"Christmas is a time for family, friends, and looking good. Especially in Toronto. Yes, your hunch is correct, you have been reading quotes from Christmas decorations for the last twenty-one installments of How to Look Good. Indeed, the eleven other months of the year we are a vibrant and prodigious literary community. My name is Reginald, and I encourage you to click on this picture."

Today's grand statement (Dylanesque Blues)

All day I've been listening to Iron & Wine's new single, "Walking Far From Home", and it's sounding more and more like the 2010 version of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." I'm not suggesting a direct correlation or raising the former up to the latter for comparison in terms of quality, but you might enjoy the double feature. So listen here.

Iron & Wine - "Walking Far From Home" (lyrics)

Bob Dylan - "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (lyrics)

How to Look Good #21

"My superpower is looking good."

How to Look Good #20

"No, do you know what sucked? Metropolis had just made it to the top of my Netflix queue, and then I hear they restored like thirty minutes of footage. Huh? Yeah, you're damn right I waited for the new version."

The Manual Internet #2

Metaphorical Edition (limited time only).

Hours and hours (Haven't Got Time for the Blues)

Here are one hundred and one tumblrs on men's fashion, because I can see that you're not busy enough.

THIS LINK IS A BLACK HOLE OF STYLE 

And here is a freebie, because you have all been so wonderful.

Hermit Book Club #2

Jacobson, Howard. The Finkler Question. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.

I put off this entry for a week or so, and although I told myself it wasn't because I didn't have a grasp on my conclusions about the book at hand, that's pretty much the case. This is the sixth opening paragraph I've tried.

So Treslove is your hero, except he's far from it. Mourning for his lack of loss, he envies two friends who have lost their wives. They are Jews, and he is not, and a great deal is made of this fact. And there is also a mugging.

The Finkler Question is the Jewish question,¹ and the novel would be at home in any course on Jewish Identity in the Modern World. Which is to say: for all its narrative maneuvers (they are slight but sharply executed) Jacobson has written something other than a straightforward story, full stop. To call it a treatise, which I was about to do, would also be off-target, since part of its success is a convolution of who-said-what ideas and principles; part of the problem is tying down any one view, or standing on it as a platform. The characters' positions and temperaments -- proud Jew, ashamed Jew, envious Gentile, Jew in mourning, Jew in training, Gentile within Jew (and vice versa) -- float upward naturally from what we are told of the men, but rarely do they remain buoyant.

Which is to say: I buy wholesale the self-examining and -questioning at every turn, and there is much of it, even if it paints these men as ideological hypochondriacs. The novel positions their hemmin' and hawin' in tension with some vague sense of time marching on; you begin to wonder if the spiritual/religious and social/political dilemmas Treslove and his friends dwell on are made obsolete by their dwelling on them -- if the parade has gone by.

Which it has. Even stripped of the Jewish question, Jacobson's novel wrenches the gut as a story of lost time. Which, of course, is not the problem of one people. And so when characters make it exclusive, well, that's kind of the point. I don't know. I have a much easier time with Phillip Roth.

---

¹ The definite article is slippery but serves a purpose: Treslove's view of Jewish identity is as limited as it is idealized. Contrast that with the author's presentation of conflicting self-identifications rubrics, and hey, you've got yourself an essay.

You Should Live Here #12

Stick with me...

Yeah, like that. Sunday service starts whenever you wake up. And by service I mean waffles.

Regarding orthodoxy, uh, we're going to have to consult the text for this. Exegesis, bitches.

Curbed has more.

Ah, Moscow, Winter 2011

When you open up the Random Livejournal Picture Generator, you hope and pray for something like this. And not just because that small hat is clearly covering her own budding horn. Mimicry is an evolutionary trait, and it exists.

Seriously, though, hats off (!) to this photographer, because this picture is a 2001 romance starring Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez.

The franchise takes a sharp left (Crepuscular Blues)

Oh, that this were the look of the entire Twilight Saga:

(From Bill Condon, the Richard Marquand of this series, via Twitter.)

I seem to recall some bright moments in the third one but it was years ago and, of course, I was fainting so often the whole thing is a bit of a blur. But generally, Twilight and New Moon and Eclipse are what you might call dark movies, which makes no sense given their titles. In contrast, Breaking Dawn is about new beginnings, hopeful mornings, the sun's soft light stroking silky white skin, and a British receptionist who takes up cooking crystal meth in order to make ends meet.

No doubt Condon is preparing the masses by hinting at the new installment's drastic visual shift. It will look like

300, 

Angels in America,

Atonement,

The Birdcage,

Factory Girl, 

Duel in the Sun,  

 The Graduate, 

Trick 'r Treat,

Days of Heaven,

 

and The Lone Ranger promotional materials. 

Frankly, I'm excited. Like midnight screening excited. When does this thing come out?

How to Look Good #19

"In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have given him the keys. Yes, I think that was where the problems began."

The Manual Internet #1

An instruction guide, in case we have to rebuild it.

The Belaboured Shirt by American Apparel

Let's take a poll: these tees that require explanation, they be good or bad? I'm referring to the ones that hinge on a pun or related wordplay, like taking some familiar expression and making it literal, with art. I can't decide whether they're smug and "ironic" and something else like that, or novel and "witty" and something else like that.

Is the point to encourage cute strangers to walk up, study your shirt, you say "Get it? They're communists who party," and they get it, with a drawn-out vowel sound as proof, and you two hit it off and spend the rest of the night trading anecdotes on the porch, and by next August you're engaged!...? Or is it more to confuse the elderly?

Both? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa. To the phones!

"Disc Jockey" 

"The i in TEAM"

"Medium Difficulty"

"Hypotamoose"

"Steven Seagull"

I have an idea for a convention where guests wander around in t-shirts, taste-testing to see if they can get the joke without reading the tags on the back. The Teexpo.¹ Anyway, no disrespect to the fine designers of t-shirts around the world, who are far handier with Illustrator and one of them pen-mouse things than I'll ever (care to) be. Also, these are just tees, and it's not even summertime. Chill, sweater, chill.

---

¹ This, of course, is a real thing: teexpo.com. They seem to sell Greenpeace shirts, which, hey, cool, whatever. From their "About" page:

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

Nice.

How to Look Good #18

"You know what? I always feel a sharp stab of guilt anytime I save a picture of an attractive girl onto my hard drive. I feel it in my shoulders, and it makes me sit up. Straight. I mean, I only save ones that are good on their own, you know, picture qua picture, it's not like it's a voyeuristic, leering thing. Well, any more than usual, you know? But come on, that's a philosophical quagmire. It might be my mother's doing, or else I know it would probably fall to my girlfriend to sift through these thousand pictures if I go. Ads, tees, newspaper clippings, chairs, people swimming with tigers, loops of people jumping, batmen, clouds shaped like owls, periodic tables of everything. But then there's a hipster photo of some young miss, and she's probably actually a model paid to do this, but she's holding a Nikon and it feels a little invasive. But I really like the lighting or what-the-hell-is-that in her hair, it looks like a flower made out of string beans. I'm saving for posterity, you know what I mean? I'm making a style guide, for, I don't know, precisely the moment I need one. And I have pictures of guys, too, so what's the problem? Yeah, I think that, but still the shoulders. A stab and a weight. Heavy like explaining it to your grandmother and grandfather. So the explanations, which sound like excuses. It's not quite a matter of careful rationing, but it's close. You can save one non-celebrity non-group female photograph for every six comic strips in Russian. Or that sort of thing. Which really, if you want to get into things, defeats the whole purpose of collecting anything interesting you see. Of having a personal collection. Dammit, if I want to save that animated gif that has fifty onscreen women having fifty onscreen orgasms, then by golly I'm going to save it. Because it reminds me of Warhol. Because it looks mesmerizing. Because, you know, the male gaze and Mulvey and all that. Because this is my computer and it's not yours. But, you know, Hamlet, I doth protest too much, yethinks. I get that. It's still going to get saved, I mean, this is a random image generator, if I don't it'll disappear forever, for all I know. So I'm going to save it. But hell if it's going on my blog."

"Oh, and this is the maid speaking, by the way."

You Should Live Here #11

That one! On the left.

You know, from the outside, apartments are almost abasing. A suburbanite is interested: do you walk outside and find your window the day you move in?

I have no idea where these apartments are, mind you. Just saved them from some website some time. And I doubt these are all apartments, per se. I think the last is called a flat.

Throw Up / Post-Hiatus Apology #2

Light a candle set the mood.

Did something to my jaw and it hurts now. When was my last dental checkup?

In exchange for your continued support and donations I offer the trump card of all freshman residence hall talent shows:



Meanwhile it's cold outside and I keep forgetting to put gloves on. Anyway there's no blood in my hands so it's only bone freezing. And don't decorate for the holidays until you see the whites in their eyes.

My social security number is a hundred.

In response to this video YouTube commenter EricW1063 said: "I bet she went to call John Wilkes Booth."

You know, I was hoping peanuts and almonds would taste the same the next morning, but I was wrong.

Be honest, do you think the blonde woman I sat next to on the train this afternoon was Interior-Decorator-To-The-Stars? She didn't provide any obvious first names as confirmation, but I have my suspicions.

Snow belongs in the sky, from shins-and-no-lower to roofs-and-no-higher.

Try as I might I can't put this in my dreams. No, all the trees are candles.

Deescalate should be a three-syllable word. No question about it. The first syllable is you saying the word this in a strange accent. We've all done it, don't be shy.

Did you know you can read magazines from the 1950s online? 1930s? Just go to Google Books and type in New York or Boys Life or Popular Science or LIFE or Kiplinger's Personal Finance. 

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops it like its hot.

Turns out many people don't like David Thomson but I enjoyed Rosebud.

This isn't mine; I found it in a Chrysler Corporation Turbine Car.

"Beginning on Sunday on E!, the show convenes a bunch of engaged women in a mansion somewhere in reality-TV mansionland and pits them against one another in a battle for a grand prize of reconstructive surgery and the requisite Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous wedding itself. [...] More Twilight Zone still, though, is the idea that the husband-to-be of the winning bride doesn’t get to see her until the day of his wedding." (NYT on Bridalplasty.) I foresee no problems with this whatsoever.

Let's get on with it, shall we?

How to Look Good #17

"No, I'm not in a gang. Why do you ask?"

Triptych Olympics #5

I Heard MGM Went Under, 1842. 9m x 70mm. Celluloid, diploma, glue.

From Wikipedia:

Gregory, the original lion used in MGM's signature logo and company credit sequence, spent his final years in the spacious and well-kept pastures of the Green Bay Lion Safari. After siring eleven cubs (one of which, Haley, went on to star alongside Robert Duvall and Michael Caine in Secondhand Lions) with a variety of lionesses in his ballooning GBLS pride, Gregory retired to a large slate rock imported from his familiar Serengeti haunt in southwestern Kenya. He died in 1990, at the age of six, from complications caused by acute renal failure.

(Thank God I Don't Have Those) University Blues

This may or may not be the kind of video you play, or if it is you may not finish. But, in the way that stationary cameras capturing real things can be, I think it's fascinating.

Briefly, the story goes: U of Central Florida students cheated on an exam -- or a third of them, anyhow -- and thanks to the magic of statistical analysis (believe it) they got caught. Smash cut to professor Richard Quinn giving the gut-wrenchingest lecture I have ever seen on Youtube. And I watch ... some lectures on Youtube.

Proper reporting at the Telegraph (because Europe cares) is available here. But if you have fifteen minutes, try this out. No additional research required.



Now take out a blank sheet of paper and write down how that video makes you feel.

"For those of you who took the shortcut, don't call me. Don't ask me to do anything for you, ever."

How to Look Good #16

"Screw your quotations. We're Bardot and Birkin, bitches."

Albumologist #2

The critics will say I'm selling out, but we're calling it at three (instead of five) in this entry because most of the time, the only thing I'm listening to is Kanye West. While I'm still settling in with the final tracklisting of his new album, Nitsuh Abebe walks the apologist's trail over at Vulture, which is a much better site, anyhow. But I sometimes remember there is plenty out there, and here is some of it:

Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid has been close at hand for way too long to not include it here. I know it's a month away from saturation by way of year-end lists, but for now, ignore every voice except mine and listen to hers. Your cultural superiority glands will thank me later. For the busy among us (why are you here?) the sweet spot is "Oh Maker" / "Come Alive" / "Mushrooms & Roses". Fritz Lang adapted this album into a screenplay in the late 1920s.

Forget by Twin Shadow is one of them albums that I heard only as a whole for the first six or seven run-throughs. You know, you put it on and then grab a book/crossword/lover and before you know it you look up and iTunes is all "Uh, hey, did you want some privacy? Because I'm done here." Which is to say distinguishing the tracks is still a bit of a problem. Which is not to say the album is boring or monotonous or plain-jane or repetitive or.... In fact, it has some really wormy hooks. The title track tricks me into thinking it's going to morph into the Knife's "Heartbeats" at any moment. Every time. Also, if you're the sort of person who values this sort of thing, this is the sort of album you can listen to just about anywhere. Just add headphones water.

Dennis Wilson drowned offshore in the eighties, but the title of his only solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, is not in itself sufficient evidence that he was from the future. If he were a Beach Boy, which he was, then things might be fishy. For instance, he anticipates the piano opening of "Tiny Dancer" (1972) in "River Song" (1970). Meanwhile, he interrupts some sweet funk to go all "Hey Jude" in the middle of "Dreamer." Add to that a refreshingly mature and lush orchestration that opens like a fine wine over time (I get one phrase like that, right?) and... is it inappropriate to say you could easily drown in these songs?

[Ed.: The author wishes to express his displeasure and remorse over the amount of songdropping in the above post. He doesn't want you to think that this is, you know, that kind of blog. So here's something else.]

Friday Night Call-In Advice Hour

Let's go to the phones!







Hey, did you know Beauty and the Beast is out on Disney Blu-Ray and DVD? Totally! And now a word from our sponsors...

How to Look Good #15

"Hey, we're the Beatles. We're on your iTunes. We look good, and this is how."